The Spending Cut Tautology

The Gormogons has a fun response to an NYT article.

NYT (a.k.a. the New York Times) was foolish enough to float the following opinion:

“It has been obvious all along that cutting government services alone is not a solution to either the budget deficit or the mounting national debt.”

Which is a pitch slow and easy right over home plate.  Too delicious to pass up.  Here’s the response:

“False, and verifiably so. The only people to whom ‘[i]t has been obvious all along’ that cutting spending won’t solve a debt and deficit problem are liberals. As a matter of fact, cutting spending well below revenues will solve a deficit problem immediately, and will eventually solve a debt problem. See, if you spend less than you make, you cannot, by definition, be in a deficit. ‘Puter believes the term is ‘surplus.’ Let’s say it together, NYT editors:’Sur-plus.’ And, if you’re taking in more than you’re spending, you can use the surplus (there’s that word again) to pay down the debt.”

Indeed, he hit the nail on the head with a sledgehammer.  Spending less than you take in cannot mathematically produce a deficit.  I’ll add the following Curmudgeonly Gem Of Insight:

“Spending less than you take in is always an option, usually a good idea, and the difference between controlling your future and being a dumbass.”

Curmudgeons do not state things are true when they are not.  This is why I don’t have a job at the NYT.  Well that and the fact that I’d scare the editors and freak out the mailroom.  But that’s their loss!